


Copy

by chantefable



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Artificial Intelligence, Deception, Erik has Issues, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, M/M, Memory Loss, Pygmalion, Resurrection, Robot/Human Relationships, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Self-Harm, Suspense, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 14:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: Charles wakes up without his memory. His sole caretaker, Erik, claims to be his husband, and tells him he's recovering from a car accident on their honeymoon.Slowly falling for Erik again, Charles begins to regain his memories. He starts to notice strange things about his body, Erik, and their secluded mansion.





	Copy

**Author's Note:**

> A Hitchock-style hermetic thriller with A.I. & robots.
> 
> Written years ago for a meme prompt: Charles dies, Erik uses technology to bring him back to life, against Charles' will. Over and over and over.

**One**

Cold. 

So cold.

He opens his eyes and feels darkness seeping between his eyelids, and the world is wrong somehow, sharp but he cannot see, and what is that noise, so much noise, he can hear everything –

"Can you hear me?"

– everything, why is the world so loud, he can hear them, thoughts, desperate and needy, pricking at his skin, peeled off and strangely senseless, but he hears, he feels –

"Can you hear me, my love?"

– presence, such horror, _who am I_ –

– that _need_ , molding him, stripping him bare, metal through his heart, _I don't have a heart_ –

"My love-"

– that voice, desperate and loud, crying, wired to plunge straight into his mind, and his thoughts are raw and dead when he lurches and –

 

**Two**

One, two, three steadying breaths.

His body feels strange, cold and clammy.

He forces his eyes open.

It's a bit like waking up from a long, fitful sleep, even though somewhere deep inside, he knows that it's anything but.

He can feel a fever rising, but he thinks 'no', and, bizarrely, it ebbs away. He tries to think of something, and remembers to breathe. Between one breath and the next, he searches for an explanation, for something, anything – why is his mind blank save a single name, a single face?

But he forces down panic, and nausea, and blinks against brilliant, inexplicable flashes of silver light that _isn't there_ until they disappear. 

Because Erik is here, so it must be all right.

//

The panic simmers for three more days, but Erik is there, telling him things.

His name. (Charles.) His life. (Here.)

They're married. (Charles believes him.) They live in a house on the beach. (Charles hasn't seen, hasn't ventured out yet.)

The nausea comes and goes, but Erik says it'll pass. (Charles cannot make himself eat anything. They keep the windows shut because he cannot bear the light.)

Charles likes it best when it's dark, and Erik is there, holding his hand. (Sometimes Charles crushes it until Erik's fingers turn white, but Erik says it's all right.)

Erik is there, all the time, talking to him, sad and happy all at once, and Charles cannot understand him at all. He cannot understand so much. He doesn't understand anything, really. The panic simmers.

Until one night, Charles wakes up, in the dark, and Erik isn't there, and before Charles can think, before he remembers to breathe, before he hears Erik's footsteps as he's coming back from the bathroom, the panic rises like the tide and Charles thinks, 'STOP,'

– and Charles _stops_.

 

**Three**

When Charles finds the blueprints, he doesn't believe his eyes.

At first.

It cannot be true, it cannot be real. That kind of robotics, artificial intelligence – it shouldn't exist. (Charles would have been aware. Erik would have told him.) In the weeks he has been recovering, he and Erik discussed it so many times, debated science and engineering late into the night, the very possibility of creation –

He doesn't believe at first, but deep down, he _knows_. He has always known.

And somehow that hurts the most. 

Betrayed by himself, by his absent memory. By his own mind, lifeless and sophisticated as it is. He should have realized that something was wrong, wrong; Erik, the house, walks on the beach and chess by the fire – it was all too good to be true. It all wasn't real.

It wasn't really for him.

Now, Charles stares at the blueprints, staggered by the undeniable knowledge that _this_ is real, this is true – the schemes, the wires, the chips, everything. Everything in him rebels at the idea, but he cannot reject the reality, ruthless and obvious.

The schemes, the complex wires, myriads of microchips dissected in the blueprints: this is all him. He can see it, crystal clear. His mind, lifeless and sublime – Erik's masterpiece – so powerful and artificial, recognizes its own image, the twists and turns, the things that make him tick.

It's like staring at one's own flesh and blood at the butcher's shop.

Charles crumples the blueprints with shaking hands.

The information is now burned in his retinas. (Blue. Erik made his eyes so eerily blue, it's like they are purposefully unreal.) The blueprints hold the answers to questions he never asked, never even thought of; he wants to forget, to make it all a dream, dreadful but unreal. He cannot. He knows.

A corpse, he is nothing but a glorified corpse made of metal and plastic and a thousand other things. (How could Erik do this to him? Why?) A shadow materialized through one man's will. (An object.)

Was there even a Charles? Was he ever real, a person, a man?

Or is _he_ Charles, and there has never been anything but him – a ghost, a simulacrum? 

A lie forged by one man's will.

He is not sure which would be worse.

He chokes at the thought of being constructed – engineered – at a whim. A fleeting fancy. A project to pass away the time.

A lover. A husband.

But _they_ , the two of them, it was all so real, and he _feels_ –

Erik's touch, his husky voice, his laughter, his kisses; Erik's arm around his shoulders, sitting down for breakfast, reading books on the couch: this is all real, the love, the curious confusion, the strange sense of rightness. And yet.

His awkward movements, and the way he sometimes feels there is much more strength and speed lurking inside him; the way his eyes never get tired even when he reads _The Once and Future King_ all night long; the way Erik gazes at him sometimes, as though he is looking right through Charles and at someone else – someone who was there before.

The way his memory stubbornly refuses to return. Because it probably belongs to someone who was there before.

And therefore.

This is all not real.

Charles looks at the papers, crumpled, creased, strewn all over the study's floor. He swipes the rest of the blueprints off the table, not caring where they land, and sits down. Picks the engraved paper knife from the stand.

( _To Erik, with love._ Erik said it was a birthday gift – from him. From Charles.)

He holds the knife, steady and precise, and slices his left wrist open. Glares at the tangled mass of wires and cables, thick and thin. They shudder and shimmer as he pokes them – as if they were alive.

He thinks he feels pain, but it doesn't matter.

He prods the wires with the tip of the knife – some are gossamer thin, some are springy, resilient – stabs a microscheme or two before cutting open the crease at his elbow and jabbing the blade inside. He can see _things_ inside him, shaking, flickering.

He uses his mangled hand to unbutton his shirt and bare his pale belly, so he can sink the paper knife in his navel.

At that point, the pain probably stops. He stops feeling it, that much is certain.

He twists the knife a couple times, abruptly hyperaware of everything but his body – the dusty air of the study, the ringing silence of the house, the murmur of the ocean, the sound of Erik's car pulling up in the driveway – and drags it out in a smooth motion.

It is still clean and shiny.

He brings it up to his throat and makes a deep, sweeping cut.

 

**Four**

He wakes up in a room. The air is chilly and his breathing is shallow. He is startled by a gentle kiss pressed to his knuckles, and when he opens his eyes, there is too much light.

He doesn't recognize anything and flails a little in dismay, but Erik – _Erik_ , hello, Erik – explains everything, and Charles – _Charles, Charles_ – tries to calm down a bit.

His body doesn't hurt much, but it feels alien and heavy. He must have been unconscious for a very long time.

He is upset that he cannot remember anything, but Erik seems convinced that it'll pass. 

Surely there is no reason for panic, Charles tells himself, allowing Erik to fuss over him. (Erik seems a little broken and overexcited but, well, that's understandable, isn't it?) 

Charles watches his fingers flex, absent-mindedly touches his abdomen, his thighs. Wants to run his fingers through his hair – oh, he's bald, is he? Erik had to shave his hair.

Charles watches Erik busy himself with the charts, competent, assured. He asks Charles questions and Charles answers, only mildly alarmed that he seems to understand so much about his body and the state of things, but cannot remember anything from _before_ at all. Erik goes on to prod him a little, fetches him a drink. 

It must be normal.

He must be a very rational person, Charles tells himself as his movements go sluggish and he slips into sleep in Erik's arms.

//

Charles wakes up at night, the terror of his nightmare clinging to his flushed, sweaty skin. The angry rumble of the ocean forces its way into the bedroom through the open window and Charles reaches blindly, captures Erik's arm in a vice-like grip, and lets out a broken, shuddering sigh.

Later, he cannot explain to Erik what makes him so restless. It's not like he _remembers_ his nightmares, any more than he remembers their life before the accident.

(Not true. He thinks he remembers, bits and pieces, metallic vertebrae swinging and swaying in perfect unison in a white, white room, and it is so revolting Charles cannot bring himself to speak. He knows that he is driving Erik out of his mind with worry, but he cannot tell him.)

Erik takes Charles to the medical room – The Room – checks his irises and blood pressure, but everything appears to be fine. Perfect, really. Charles is recovering admirably.

So Erik just goes down to the kitchen, and Charles follows him, and they make pancakes at three o'clock in the morning.

And they talk and laugh, like it's something they used to do all the time.

//

Erik only rarely goes to The Room now that Charles is better and needs no check-ups, and Charles would rather he didn't go there at all. The twisted tubes and wires, bubbling liquids and rows upon rows of glass bowls and bottles fill him with a sense of dread and agitation he would prefer to avoid. Charles himself only sets foot there when he goes to fetch Erik, words like, "Time for dinner," or "Let's go to the beach" barely making it past his lips before he is overcome by a wave of nausea and disgust.

He doesn't like Erik's eyes frosted by the angry glare of electric lights at 100%. He recoils from Erik's latex-gloved hand on his shoulder. The grim set of Erik's mouth as he notes down something in his magenta journal is enough to make Charles flinch, though he has no idea why.

He mentions it to Erik one night, over chess.

If Erik goes to The Room after that, Charles knows nothing of it.

//

Charles likes the library. Erik says it's his favorite room.

Unlike the rest of the house, distressingly modern – a rock of glass and concrete rising on a lonely beach – the library feels old, vibrant with a kind of dormant, soothing energy. Like it's part of something – someone? – brilliant, knowing, and unrepentantly alive.

There are bookshelves filled with rows and stacks of books on every subject Charles can think of, nooks and crannies crammed with dusty volumes, a coffee table buried under a pile of old newspapers and magazines. 

The library feels warm, safe. Normal.

(The only distressing, alien thing about it, Charles thinks sometimes, is him.

(But that doesn't make any sense.)

Charles spends hours in the library, trying to pick up on his old research, and when he wanders the long, empty corridors afterwards, they seem even gloomier than before. He shrinks from the windows gaping at the frothing ocean in trepidation, and everything about the lifeless metallic contraptions around the house repulses him until he finds Erik, whose hot, tender touch somehow wrestles Charles' irrational fears into submission.

//

There's a painting in the living-room, a large canvas, bright and dark at the same time, and the dripping, distorted shapes never cease to lure Charles in, filling him with a strange kind of anxiety. He could stare at it for hours, Erik sprawled on the couch with a book, Charles half-sprawled on top of Erik, thinking.

"Is that a real Dali?" he asks one day, Erik's fingers tangled in his hair.

"No," Erik murmurs against his ear. "Just a copy."

//

No one comes to the house, and when Charles asks, Erik says that no one visits them anymore.

There is something off about this phrase, about Erik's voice, and Charles stares at him in consternation, some strange feeling creeping down his spine, but he cannot explain why, what, how – what in hell is wrong?

He must be tired, Erik says.

And yes, he must be right.

Charles is tired of being afraid.

//

The house is deadly silent as Charles gets up in the middle of the night and leaves Erik asleep in their bed. (Erik has only begun looking better. He has been so weary, so pained these past weeks. It pleases Charles to catch a hint of a smile on his sleep-rumpled face.)

He walks down the cold corridor, down the flawlessly forged steel stairs, to the grim, gleaming door of The Room.

Opens it.

Charles walks past the table, which looks equal part like a deathbed and a kitchen surface, past the cabinets full of drugs and poison, past the tools that have never stopped terrifying him, though he doesn't understand why. It's a place of ritual and crazy concoction.

Charles goes to Erik's table and searches for the magenta journal.

Then, he begins to read.

//

It is early morning and the sun has not yet risen. The house is silent save for their screams, which ring loud and shrill in The Room, in the dark corridor, in the brightly-lit hall.

Erik cries, rages, weeps, and Charles' heart would break for him if he had a heart.

He's not even sure he wants to do it, but they argue and shout at each other, in the living-room, the library, the kitchen, and Charles feels his horror mounting, and he knows that they keep a gun in the cupboard – which always struck him as a bit silly – and he takes it and puts a bullet where his brain would have been just to stop hearing Erik's awful, desperate words.

 

**Five**

Charles thinks he may be falling in love.

The promptness seems somewhat indecent, even if the man in question is his own husband.

So far, they have kissed in almost every room of the house. (The beach, too. How could Charles ever forget the beach?)

They have kissed in the hall, Erik's hands strong and hot on Charles' shoulders, Charles' fingers restless as he searched for Erik's wild pulse in the vulnerable spot under his jaw. The hall flooded with light, Charles flooded with sensation. 

Those might have been tears in Erik's eyes when Charles' lips lingered on his.

They have kissed in the corridors, too. Wide and spacious, narrow and dim, there are all kinds of corridors at the house open for exploration, just like Charles is open to the possibility of having Erik press his mouth to Charles', to swallow his gasps.

The study is shut up. Erik doesn't ever go there, and neither does Charles.

(Charles thinks something unpleasant must have happened there, something that probably still haunts Erik. But when Charles offers to redecorate the room to get rid of the past, Erik refuses.)

But they have kissed in the library. Erik watching Charles over the rim of his glasses, a half-smile on his face, Charles devouring hundreds of pages of research – his own, Erik's, McCoy's. (Apparently Charles knew McCoy once. He should write him some time.) Erik reaching for Charles, hesitantly at first, just a chaste brush of lips with Charles leaning against a bookshelf. Charles pressing Erik into the bookshelf in turn, tasting his sharp collarbones and rough fingertips, the weary lines around Erik's mouth.

They have kissed in the living-room. And in the dining-room. It's like Erik is always half a heartbeat away from reaching for Charles, leaning into him, wrapping his arm around Charles' shoulders, sinking into Charles' embrace. (And somehow, Charles feels just as lost, jumping headfirst into sensation, drowning in desire, in Erik. It's exhilarating. It's inexplicable.) Charles thinks that he could live on kisses alone.

They have kissed in the kitchen.

(Erik's mouth on his is just as sweet as Erik's words in Charles' ears. And Charles can scarcely believe that someone so tender, so loyal, so brilliant, so alive could be _his_. He cannot imagine how he laid claim to such passion – Erik makes him feel like he's the centre of the world – but he knows the truth of it as surely as if he had read Erik's mind.)

They have kissed on the porch, shuddering in the warm summer rain, entwining their bodies and feeding each other their longing.

They have kissed on the beach.

Yes, they have.

//

Charles thinks that he has been recovering as well as it is possible, considering the circumstances. He cannot help admiring Erik's persistence, Erik's faith. Obviously, it's only thanks to Erik that Charles has woken up from coma, that he is doing as well as he does. It's only thanks to Erik that Charles is still alive.

(Erik has told him that he has a sister. Had. They had fallen out before the accident, and she – Raven – hasn't come to visit him. Still hasn't come. Raven, Raven, the blonde, pouty girl in the photographs. Charles wishes he could remember her.)

Erik is with Charles at every step, helping him relearn, remember. Retrace the lines of his past life.

Discover the smell of books, the smell of the ocean. The warmth of the fire, the warmth of the sun. The warmth of another body in bed.

Having Erik by his side makes _this_ , crawling back from the dead, seem almost ordinary. Their days blur together, small steps, Charles becoming more and more daring, never having any fear for his body, his mind, his life.

Because Erik is by his side. Because Erik is extraordinary.

//

It turns out that Charles is _terrible_ at chess.

It's laughable, really; Charles doesn't see how he could have so thoroughly forgotten something Erik claims he used to enjoy, excel at, even. Privately, Charles thinks he must have not cared for the game at all if it's been out of his mind at first notice. Or he must have cheated outrageously, Charles suggests one evening with a smile, watching Erik's pieces massacre his own.

(At that, Erik sputters in indignation, and Charles cannot help staring at the play of shadows on his face.)

Charles would have liked to just let it go, but Erik doesn't. So they play, quite often, Charles trying his best to relearn the game just to humor Erik. Erik seems to enjoy it, just like he enjoys all the time they spend together, and Charles tries to spare at least some attention for the Kings and Queens, even though Erik's long fingers are infinitely more interesting.

(Yes, Charles tries his best, but Erik catches him staring more often than not. Charles knows that he is utterly transparent.)

//

It's true that Erik fusses over him more than a little, and it takes a grin and a touch of Charles' hand to remind him that Charles is amnesiac, not a helpless child.

All the time, Erik worries that Charles might be tired, or hungry; that he might be too hot, too cold; he very nearly ruined a perfectly delightful make-out session on the beach worrying about the sand irritating Charles' skin.

One day Charles cuts his finger while slicing oranges in the kitchen. Erik looks absolutely stricken, and Charles thinks he catches a strange look of – pride? – on his face the second it takes the blood to well up from the cut before it's replaced by grumpy exasperation and more genuine worry than the cut warrants.

Charles just laughs it off.

(But he cannot laugh at the sadness that is hiding in Erik's lovely eyes, the agitation going off him in waves whenever Erik is worried about something – about Charles more often than not. He cannot laugh at the weariness that is clinging to Erik like second skin, like a loathsome shroud.

(Charles cannot laugh, because he knows that he is the cause of it all.)

//

Charles thinks that Erik might have been stingy with the _intelligence_ part of Artificial Intelligence, because it honestly has never occurred to him that he might be one until he found – he is not sure what is more appropriate, the archive or the shrine.

It's a room that stinks of death, that much is certain.

The neat stacks of folders, countless blueprints and diagrams of the human body (inside and out) splayed on every surface and pinned to the walls, the disassembled, half-finished prototypes – yes, it takes Charles seeing an identical copy of his own arm, blue and bloodless, for him to realize.

(Or maybe it's the humming refrigerator. Or the gleaming metal table, bare after the feast for the crows of science.)

It takes staring at the large glass container, empty like a scrubbed out womb, and fat, shiny hoses hanging down from the ceiling in a parody of bats.

It takes remembering what he read of Erik's research from _before_ and the evidence in front of his eyes. 

It takes wrapping his hand – so lifelike, so human – around the neck of a small bottle and watching a thousand others rotate in the machine, his mind filling in the gaps. (Biotechnologies had been his field, Erik told him. He didn't tell Charles they had become Erik's as well.)

All it takes is one look at Erik's face.

//

Charles doesn't know what to do. He feels lost, drifting. He cannot bear to think how Erik must feel.

Erik, who talks to him, who finally tells Charles everything, even though it is obvious that all those words are like burning coals in his mouth.

Now, Charles sees that Erik is exhausted, held together with nothing but a thread of savage hope. He fixes Charles with an intense look, and his words are measured, carefully chosen. It's like he has actually planned this conversation.

Like he has done this before.

Charles doesn't know what to do.

That night, with Erik's face, wet and hot from tears, pushed into the crook of his neck and Erik's arms clasping him like a vise, Charles thinks of the lonely months spent mixing life and death in tubes, of the cold, of grief. 

Of Erik's home being actually his prison, and of Charles being the shackles keeping him there. 

Charles listens for the soothing sound of the ocean, but all he can hear is the listless hum of the refrigerator.

//

Their life goes on, as normal and ordinary as it ever was.

Charles doesn't know what to do.

He can see that Erik is drowning, drowning in a sea of grief, determined to hold onto something that will inevitably drag him into the dark abyss – to hold on to Charles. His Charles.

So Charles thinks that if he loves Erik, even a little, he has to help Erik let go.

//

The weather is mild, and so is the wind. Charles urges Erik to go for a run and settles with a book on the large balcony, in plain sight. He has a bowl of fruit on the table, and a knife to peel them. Charles has thought it out well, and it's when Erik has gone far enough that he makes a few well-placed cuts.

It takes Charles a very long time to bleed out.

He can feel Erik's eyes on him as he is running along the stretch of the beach, once, twice, but Charles has angled his body well, he is wearing a dark cardigan and has a book propped in his lap, and Erik doesn't notice anything amiss.

(It is probably only when the blood rises over the low partition on the edge of the balcony and spills out, dribbling down the glass walls of the house, that Erik notices that something is wrong. But it's not like Charles will ever know.)

 

**Six**

The ocean stretches in front of him like a huge, dark, living thing, its waters rolling and sighing as the evening descends.

It lures him in somehow, the countless shades of blue, grey, and green, the noise. 

Charles comes down every day, mornings and evenings, walking close to the edge of the water, letting the waves lick his shoes. 

With each passing day, his walks are getting longer.

He knows that Erik is worried about him. Charles tells him the walks help him to calm down.

It feels like they help him remember.

Charles doesn't tell Erik that.

There are a lot of things on his mind he hasn't been telling Erik.

Charles listens to the heavy murmur of the ocean and measures the pale stretch of the beach with his steps. He remembers the exact count. Every single time.

He can retrace his steps, perfectly, one by one. He can copy his every movement. Every time.

It _feels_ like the ocean helps him remember, but it doesn't. Because there is nothing to remember. There is nothing beyond the point when he opened his eyes – no, a little earlier. 

Beyond the point when he was plugged in. Charged.

Activated.

Brought to life, regardless of the fact that it was someone else's life, and he shouldn't have been born – made – forced into existence at all.

Charles sighs, like Erik does. Then he sighs like the ocean does. Perfect copy.

The water washes over his feet and Charles walks on, not slowed down in the slightest, like the other Charles would have been. The real Charles, that is.

Charles. Just Charles. Because _he_ isn't Charles.

Charles _was_ and he _is_ , but Charles had a life, and he has a purpose. Nothing but a purpose. 

To be Charles.

For Erik.

He keeps walking despite the fact that the house has long been left out of sight. The skies darken. He turns his head and watches the ocean, a roiling, natural mass of matter, swelling under his gaze.

He turns and strays off the usual path, the one that he unnaturally remembers, the one that he copies perfectly day after day. And he begins to walk like he hasn't walked before.

The other way.

Straight into the ocean.

It's shallow at first, and the waves attempt to drag him back to the shore, but he keeps walking, steady and unyielding the way Charles – or Erik – wouldn't have been able to be. On and on he walks until the black waves welcome him, heavy and cold as they close above his head.

It feels like dying.

Natural.

 

**Seven**

It starts one day with information trickling down Charles' spine as he arches over Erik's sweat-slick body, sheets slipping down and pooling at their ankles while Charles' hands grip Erik's wrists tight enough to feel his frantic heartbeat, and Erik thrusts up, his groin brushing hotly against Charles' tense thighs, chasing pleasure and oblivious to the new, strange frenzy that threatens to overwhelm Charles, that leaves him horridly breathless in a way Erik's kisses never have, that makes Charles claw at Erik's sticky, flushed skin as data floods Charles' body, the rush headier and more terrifying than any orgasm, even the sweetest ones that Erik had wrenched out of his body time and time again, and there's a sickening flash of heat in Charles' lower back, and he knows.

And then the next day it all feels like a punch in the gut: the way the polished floors of the empty study gleam in the pale sunlight streaming through the windows; the way silence stretches in the long corridor where there is nothing but large rooms stripped bare, painted white but smelling like darkness; the way the house appears to have been redone, in fits and starts – here, a gaping hole where a painting used to be, there, a lonely kitchen island suspended in the clean transparency of the high tech kitchen, not a thing out of place; the way the balcony remains a gutted mess, construction beams and crippled devices gathering dust and dirt in the wind, carnage willfully abandoned. 

The way Erik stares at the ocean sometimes, black roiling anger, longing, and triumph burning in his gaze.

Alien memories are assailing Charles, within and without.

And then Charles opens his mouth and words gush out like poisoned water, because he is angry and he is strong, he is clever and he is confused, he wants to know, he _must_ know, and Erik is there and he knows, surely he knows; Erik is there and he is like a fortress begging to be besieged, a citadel that has to be robbed of all its secrets as their house has been robbed of bitter fragments of past lives, and so Charles lashes out, every word like a blow, relentless like an ice vise to Erik's mind, ruthless like cold and steel and the detached curiosity of the damned, and he demands to know, he demands to be told, and he shouts, and Erik shouts back, and he hits, and Erik hits back, and they kiss, and they fuck, and Charles squeezes Erik's throat until he forces the horrid words of truth out, out, out.

And then the dreadful, dreaded words flit like ravens from Erik's hot lips, secrets to the stronghold of his mind, proof of Erik's brilliance, of his obsession, of his faithfulness.

And then Charles cannot help it, more than anything, he is amazed, astounded, and full of admiration: he is a man, he is a monster – he, Charles, he is flesh and blood and more, metal and plastic, gossamer thin wires crisscrossing under his skin and minuscule microschemes ingrained deep in living bone and cartilage – and Charles cannot believe that Erik loved him so, that he raped life itself to force her to bear him Charles, an unnatural child, and Charles would feel his heart breaking if a heart could break, if he had a heart, and indeed he does, and indeed his can break, and Charles drags Erik kicking and screaming down every corridor and through every room because it hurts, and Erik hurts, and it hurts Charles that Erik hurts but he hurts for himself even more, and for the other Charles, and all the others after him, and it's an endless loop of hurt.

And then, with tears streaming down Charles' face (with his legs giving out under him, with a wave of blinding-white rage that makes Charles howl), and with blood sluicing down Erik's face (with the lines that weren't on his face in the wedding photographs suddenly making sense, with Erik begging, praying for Charles to understand, the words desperate and merciless like barbed wire twisting around Charles' heart), and with the dusk bleeding all over the murky waters of the ocean and through the clear glass windows, with the attic doors open and machines unplugged, with the madness out, with the bemoaned past there for the wretched present to see – then Charles _hates_ , and, under the onslaught of rage and loathing, he storms through the house of glass and metal, the house of Erik's almost-perfect lies, craving destruction, craving revenge, craving the blessed times when he hadn't known, when he hadn't made Erik cry and crawl, and then Charles' heart breaks, and then it is truly the end.

 

**Eight**

Charles' hands are ziplocked behind his back. He cannot move, he is bound to a chair. He cannot speak, but not because he is gagged, no, Erik wouldn't dare bruising his precious mouth: Charles is shaking with anger, he is speechless because he is still in shock, he doubts he can ever speak because his strongest feeling is denial. He refuses to believe that it is true.

And yet Erik makes denial impossible, his every word sinking in Charles' brain like a vicious brand.

Erik talks, and he tells Charles everything, _everything_. How much he loved him, how much he _loves_ him. 

The way Charles died, and how Erik found it impossible to live because Charles wasn't there. The way Erik dared to believe in Charles' android vision, in his biotech dream only when he was gone. The way Erik hated himself.

The way Charles kept dying, kept leaving Erik no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he changed. The way Erik kept hating himself. The way Charles hated Erik, time and time again, left him, _hurt himself_. It cannot happen again. Erik will not let him, will not stand for that, Charles must live. 

Erik would gladly die ten times over for him, only Charles must live. 

Charles' breaths grow shallow, and his bonds are cutting painfully into his flesh (synthetic flesh, perfect, perfect copy). Erik is crying, shaking, and Charles cannot bear to see him in pain, just as much as he cannot stand the thought of Erik taking the choice out of his hands, time and time again. A wave of nausea hits Charles, and he feels tears running down his cheeks (real, salty tears, synthetic tears to match Erik's). He cannot stand the thought of himself twisting the dagger in Erik's heart, of robbing him of choice time and time again. He doesn't wish to think of the two of them caught in an endless loop of betrayal, lashing out at life and death as if those fundamental forces were at fault. When all that happened was just them, too weak, too human, too stubborn to let go or stay.

Watching Erik curl up on the floor, pouring his heart out, sobbing, Charles wishes he had never known. Wishes he had never asked questions, never come looking.

Because he cannot help hating what Erik did, acting against everything Charles stood for, and yet. And yet. Charles bites his lip, staring at Erik crawling at his feet, showing him the journals, the documents, begging.

And yet the fiercest hatred Charles reserves for himself. He did this. Not when he died. Not the first time. But when he kept wrenching the last scraps of sanity from Erik's mind, reducing him to this. He had willfully, selfishly hurt Erik, time and time again, and Charles' own wrongs can never excuse that.

Charles is dizzy, desperate, but fear and loathing power him, keep him awake through the torture of Erik's truth. Erik tells him everything, everything.

Every gory detail of Charles killing himself, of Erik lovingly picking up the scraps. Every conversation, every lie. Every deception. The solitude, the isolation, Raven's mourning, the world forgetting and moving on. Everything. Everything.

Charles feels himself bleed and break on the inside while watching Erik's panicked, haunted face. (Or he fancies that he can feel himself bleed and break. He has done that before, hasn't he? He bled out. He broke. Broke Erik's heart, broke Erik.) Erik, his beautiful Erik, the one he is sure he loved, not one but many times. His Erik is strong and resilient, bold and daring. But Charles shudders when Erik rests his head against Charles' knees, because _this_ Erik (his Erik, the only one he has ever known, the only one there is) is a survivor. 

This Erik has walked through hell. Because Charles has dragged him through it.

Charles wants to grieve for Erik from before, for Erik before Charles' death, _before Charles_. To grieve for himself, all of himself, and he hates Erik for suffering so much, because it means Charles cannot ever hate him. He cannot, he loves him. And he hates himself, for doing what he has done or for being what he is, he is not sure, because everything, from his existence to his actions, has been against everything he ever stood for.

Charles has been spitting on his own grave.

Charles has been digging a grave for Erik.

And Erik, damn him, still talks, his heart and soul like an unprotected, flickering candle bared to the wind while Charles is here, bound and helpless, suspended in the purgatory. (Good. He doesn't trust himself near Erik. He doesn't trust himself to protect him, to save him; doesn't trust himself not to strangle Erik in his sleep and be done with it all.)

Erik's face is lined and his fingers are cold, and he talks of the generator malfunction, of Charles' body – his _original_ body – being gone, of Charles being all there is left. There's nothing else, nothing, because Erik burned it all, because there's only one Charles, only he is real, it has always been him. Erik _knows_.

And really, why had Charles come looking, what did he want to find? Those graves – closets – cupboards – that enormous, grave secret which their quiet home was built upon, why did he have to drag it out in the open? Why did he ask Erik about what he found in the basement, like a curious fool hunting after Bluebeard's secrets?

Did he want to know about Erik, torn apart by pain and guilt, blaming himself for Charles' death? (The death he couldn't have prevented. The deaths he thought he could have. Too many deaths for a single lifetime.) Did he want to know about Erik, clinging to the past day after day, renouncing everything for the sake of a corpse?

No, no, no. 

Thoughts whir in his mind, images aligning and realigning. Charles only wanted to be happy, didn't he? He only wanted to live.

No, no, no.

Erik is silent, exhausted, staring into space. The room is awash with the delicate cool pink of dawn, like blood diluted with water.

No, Charles didn't want to be happy. He wanted the truth. And he got it.

He wanted the truth, because he was Charles. He was Charles. He has always been Charles. 

Every time Erik made him, every time Erik brought him back to their home – increasingly wrecked by time – by lies – by Charles – Charles was always himself, faults and virtues, strengths and weaknesses, arrogance and assumption. Blindness, entitlement, power, love like a sledgehammer. Erik wanted him that way. 

Erik only wanted Charles, the rest of the world be damned.

His body might have been changed to be stronger, more alive, but Charles' self is the same. All Charles.

It is Erik who has kept changing – and yes, it is Charles who has kept changing Erik. He doesn't want him any less, though. He still wants Erik, this Erik, _Erik_ if the thrum in his high-tech veins is anything to go by.

But he still wants other things – choice, freedom, freedom to live or to die – things that he fears he may never have now.

This conundrum is too much, beyond the matters of life and death, love and hate, freedom and imprisonment, even beyond the relativity of it all. It's too much, and Charles deals with it the only way he can – the only way Erik would have done it, too – he uses his strength and mind to adapt and adjust, he breaks free of the ziplock, the ropes.

And he flees.

He doesn't make it very far.

It's only a matter of seconds before Erik wakes up, disoriented and horrified. His panic is plain and familiar: Erik fears that Charles might leave, might die, might abandon him, might hurt himself. It takes Charles half a second to read it in Erik's stance, his tense shoulders, the fluid grace of his movements, the dead mask that Erik's face has become. It takes Charles another half a second to keep moving, because staying is too painful, too much.

It's another mistake.

They fight, landing punches and blows. They struggle on the narrow landing. They trip, they stumble, they fall, and there's an agonizing eternity of the two of them tumbling down the stairs, hopelessly entwined in each other's limbs, in each other's terror and despair, with the dull sounds of smacking flesh and cracking bones filling Charles' ears as they keep going down, down, down.

 

**One**

Cold. 

It's colder than he thought. (Thought? When? When? What?)

It's cold until it's not, five points of warmth making contact with his numb skin, heat spreading in delicious ripples – a hand, it's a hand, touching him – and he is warm all over: his arm, where the strong, soothing hand has first anchored him, his chest, his stomach, arms, legs, head, groin, his fingers twitching, suddenly touch-starved, and he jerks –

"It's all right."

A voice, as strong and soothing as the hand. With an undercurrent of weariness and – warmth? – no, love, _love_ , and he knows viscerally that it's _just for him_ – 

"It's all right," the voice cracks slightly as he struggles to open his eyes – he can _feel_ his eyelids, and they're heavy. He can feel the fiber of the fabric he is lying upon, and the hard surface underneath, probably metal; he can feel the pressure of air on his exposed skin –

he must be naked –

the air smells slightly sour and it's so heavy –

and he is so scared, he knows he has never been this scared _in his entire life_ –

he cannot breathe, he cannot remember –

and as he thrashes, seized by dark panic, becoming aware that he's hungry, and feverish, and he _still cannot open his eyes_ – another hand comes to cup his jaw (smooth, dry skin, perfect grip) –

the voice murmurs gently, "It's all right, darling."

And finally, he blinks and _sees_ – with perfect, unnatural clarity – a pair of beautiful blue eyes.

Machines. Metallic rods. The glare of electric lights.

The open window, and the sun suspended in the sky.

"Don't be afraid, Erik."

Outside, the ocean is lapping at the shore.


End file.
